There are traces of the Coen brothers crawling all over Crawl , from the opening gas station sequence - a riff on No Country For Old Men ’s coin toss - to its gallery of criminals and drifters populating the Aussie town where wholesome barmaid Marilyn (Georgina Haig) is caught in the wake of a murderous double-cross and taken hostage by a Croatian cowboy (George Shevtsov).
Stylish, slow-burning and veering into torture territory, British director Paul China’s debut feature is crammed with tension yet light on action.
The result is gory and stark, but no Blood Simple .
